Sun Exchange closes ICO with $1m raised, just 20% of target

SA startup The Sun Exchange, a blockchain-based solar micro-leasing marketplace, has concluded its initial coin offering (ICO) — having raised just over $1-million, just 20% of its targeted raise of $5.4-million.

The ICO for its Sunex Token — which came to an end on 31 December last year — will allow investors to earn an income off small solar projects that the startup manages.

In a blog post on 18 January, Sun Exchange said it had raised $1 068 205 and has allocated 28 485 478 Sunex Tokens.

It attributed not having achieved the targeted raise of $5.4-million to the recent turbulent ICO market.

“We know many of you share our disappointment that, in the midst increasingly challenging ICO market conditions, we ultimately did not allocate the number of tokens we initially targeted.

“However, along with our peers across the industry, we’ve learned a lot from running an ICO and there are important wins and benefits as a result of the token sale that are worth highlighting,” the startup said.

These it said included, allowing the startup has effectively doubled its user base and the Sun Exchange platform now has members from more than 130 countries around the world.

It said the ICO also helped Sun Exchange to gain exposure across the global cryptocurrency and blockchain industries.

“We spent the last year presenting on stages in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Malta, London, Singapore and beyond, introducing audiences around the world to Sun Exchange and how blockchain-based finance can drive solar power proliferation,” the startup said in the post.

The startup also said in the blog post that it would continue to raise capital by seeking external equity investments.

A report by Ventureburn in July last year found that even among those startups that ran ICOs before the turbulence of last year, few came anywhere near achieving their targeted raise (see this story).

But Sun Exchange said in the blog post that this didn’t mean that blockchain did not have a critical role to play in driving renewable energy.

“Any innovation with such massively disruptive potential inevitably goes through obstacles and setbacks as it matures and finds its footing.

“Yet, with everything we learned through the Sunex token sale, we are more certain than ever that blockchain will be critical to driving the solar revolution that our planet so desperately needs,” the startup said.

The Sun Exchange is among eight SA startups that Ventureburn has singled out for readers to follow closely in 2019 (see this story).

Correction (29 January 2019): In earlier story on The Sun Exchange’s ICO in October last year, we had incorrectly calculated (based on the Sunex coins allocated at that time) that the startup had by then raised over $2.7-million – when in fact the raise had stood at just under or around $1-million at the time. We regret the error.